In Memory: Virginia Beall Ball

Virginia Beall Ball died Dec. 1 at the age of 84. Among her many contributions to Baylor University, she endowed a lecture series and established an annual poetry festival, both of which have brought several international dignitaries to the Waco campus.
Ball graduated from Baylor in 1940 and served her alma mater on the alumni affairs and public relations staff for two years. A tireless patron of the arts and sciences, world traveler and civic leader, she and her husband, Edmund, whom she married in 1952, founded the Edmund F. and Virginia B. Ball Foundation. She served on the board of directors of the Ball Brothers Foundation and was trustee emeritus of the Interlochen Center for the Arts. 
For three years, she chaired the board of trustees of the National Wildlife Foundation and served on the Indiana Commission on the Humanities and the International Woman's Forum. She also was a member of the board of the Ball State University Foundation and founded the Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry at Ball State. For her civic work, she was presented the Medal of Distinction from Ball State University, the Indiana Achievement Award and the Sagamore of Wabash Award by the governor of Indiana. 
Ball's relationship with Baylor was one of mutual appreciation. In 1982, she endowed the Beall-Russell Lecture Series to honor her mother, DeLouise McClelland Beall, and Lily Russell, Baylor's former dean of women. She also established the Beall Poetry Festival in 1994 in honor of her parents and to encourage the writing and appreciation of poetry. Ball served on the board of advisers for the College of Arts and Sciences, was a lifetime member of the Baylor Alumni Association, a patron of Armstrong Browning Library and a charter member of the Old Main Society. She was named a Baylor Distinguished Alumna in 1989 and was presented with an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Baylor. She also held honorary doctorates at three other universities.
Ball is survived by three sons, Frank, Fred and Robert; and two daughters, Marilyn Heaton and Nancy Keilty.